Glen Innes Severn councillors saw first hand the impact that the proposed wind farm development at Furracabad would have on neighbouring residents last Thursday.

Following the conclusion of council’s March meeting the eight councillors, three directors and the general manager boarded council’s Garden Court bus to tour the Furracabad valley.

Upon boarding the bus, the councillors were each given a copy of an information package sourced from the NSW Department of Planning which detailed the information given to the department by the developers, and a copy of a DVD presentation about what it was like living next door to a windfarm in southern Australia.

The tour began at Russell and Sue Hargreaves property on Haymarket Road which is directly opposite the Waterloo Range, where the proposed wind turbines will be situated. The bus then

The guidelines, which will now be placed on public exhibition for 28 days, pertain to those wind farm developments that are not considered to be of State significance, meaning the consent authority it the NSW Government, rather than the council. This is determined by the number of towers proposed and the power to be generated.

However it is believed the guidelines will have some relevance to the Furracabad wind farm proposal as the draft document will now go to the Department of Planning as well as on public exhibition for comment, Mayor Steve Toms said.

“Council’s position on the matter is to help flag issues that the people in the area have expressed concern about,” Cr Toms said. “It was a good opportunity to bring council on board to discuss information so that they were more in touch with the issues”.

There is a certain amount of speculation in regards to noise impacts, though the wind monitoring towers, standing at 80m, certainly gives you an idea of the height of the turbines (proposed for 130m), Cr Toms said.

“The DVD that we were shown was one person’s interpretation. Obviously presenting sound effects is very hard to translate realistically through the microphone and then onto DVD. “There is still a lot we don’t know; we have to rely on assessment process and studies to resolve the issues,” Cr Toms said.

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